On the way to my karate classes there's a church that is notorious for the really bad messages on its sign -- ranging from sappy and empty ("if God had a refrigerator your picture would be on it") to just flat-out strange ("whoever is praying for the heat please stop!"). (For the record -- it's not the church whose sign is pictured beside this post. Google Images provided me this particular photo.)
That first example -- the one about God putting your picture on the refridgerator -- for some reason gave me pause. At first blush it seems pointless and sentimentalized.
But it's actually symptomatic of a real problem. It's the spiritual equivalent to that sniffle you get two days before bird flu hits.
The thing that makes it especially terrible is that it's all about us. It's glorifying mankind paradoxically by way of reference to God's grace -- sort of an emptier version of the "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life" gospel (which itself is just the "prosperity gospel"). It places the focus away from the greatness of God and ignores the sinfulness of mankind wholesale. We may be forgiven, but it is not as though we are perfected unsinning creatures. To the contrary, we are flawed and rebellious humanity, and it's only by incomprehensible grace that God accepts us at all.
We're not the adorable preschooler whose picture is on the refridgerator, we're the crowd chanting for the death of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
This seems harsh, but it's an important perspective. Because without a proper understanding of our own vile state, we neglect the beauty and grace of what God has done -- and in so doing we disesteem that God who created and redeemed us.
And even if we do not show this disdain, we often forget its purpose. No, Christ did not die so that we could live forever. That is a gift of His mercy, yes, but it's not the sum total of his eternity-transcending design. He died on the cross, bearing our sins, for the same reason that He created us in the first place: for His ultimate glory.
The Genevan Catechism summarizes matters well:
Master: What is the chief end of human life? Scholar: To know God by whom men were created.
M: What reason have you for saying so? S: Because he created us and placed us in this world to be glorified in us. And it is indeed right that our life, of which himself is the beginning, should be devoted to his glory.
M: What is the highest good of man? S: The very same thing.
In describing the end of time, God tells Isaiah:
[Isaiah 60:19-22][1]
The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light; but the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself; for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended. Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified. The least one shall become a clan, and the smallest one a mighty nation; I am the LORD; in its time I will hasten it.
[1 Peter 4:10-11][2]
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies---in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
This is why, just a few verses later, Peter can encourage the believers facing persecution to endure it in a manner that glorifies God:
[1 Peter 4:14-16][3]
If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler.
Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.
This is a God-centric gospel. This is the Gospel: that for God's own glory -- that His glory might be made known in awe and amazement to all of mankind, He created everything that exists and appointed to all things their times of birth and life and happiness and grief and pain and joy and death so that His name would be known and exalted above all of the things He had created.
A God-centric theology can withstand the weight of hardship bolstered by the exhortation Peter gives. A man-centric theology is shocked when all of a sudden it seems like God has taken our picture off of the refridgerator.
[1]: http://esvbible.org/Isaiah 60:19-22 [2]: http://esvbible.org/1 Peter 4:10-11 [3]: http://1 Peter 4:14-16